Identity

When evening listened to the dipping oar,
Forgetting the loud city's ceaseless roar,
By the green banks, where Thames, with conscious pride,
Reflects that stately structure on his side,

Within whose walls, as their long labours close,
The wanderers of the ocean find repose,
We wore, in social ease, the hours away,
The passing visit of a summer's day.

Whilst some to range the breezy hill are gone,
I lingered on the river's marge alone,
Mingled with groups of ancient sailors gray,
And watched the last bright sunshine steal away.

As thus I mused amidst the various train
Of toil-worn wanderers of the perilous main,
Two sailors, - well I marked them, as the beam
Of parting day yet lingered on the stream,
And the sun sank behind the shady reach, -<...

O that word REGRET!
There have been nights and morns when we have sighed,
"Let us alone, Regret! We are content
To throw thee all our past, so thou wilt sleep
For aye." But it is patient, and it wakes;
It hath not learned to cry itself to sleep,
But plaineth on the bed that it is hard.

We did amiss when we did wish it gone
And over: sorrows humanize our race;
Tears are the showers that fertilize this world;
And memory of things precious keepeth warm
The heart that once did hold them.
    They are poor
That have lost nothing; they are poorer far
Who, losing, have forgotten; they most poor
Of all, who lose and wish they MIGHT forget.

For life is one, and in its warp and woof
There runs a thread of gold that glitters fair,
And sometimes in t...

On the early and lamented death of George and Maggie Rosseaux, brother and sister, who died within one week of each other in the autumn of 1875. Young, beautiful and beloved, they were indeed lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.


Pace slowly, black horses, step stately and solemn--
One by one--two by two--stretches out the long column;
Pass on with your burden, the sound of our tears
    Will not reach the deaf ears.

Beneath the black shadow of funeral arches,
Stepping slow to the rhythm of funeral marches;
Pass on down the street where their steps were so gay,
    And so light, yesterday.

Where it seems if we turn we shall clasp them and hold them,
Our hands shall embrace--and our eyes shall behold them,--
So near are th...

Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
And glorious ages gone
Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

Childhood, with all its mirth,
Youth, Manhood, Age, that draws us to the ground,
And last, Man's Life on earth,
Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

Thou hast my better years,
Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind,
Yielded to thee with tears,
The venerable form, the exalted mind.

My spirit yearns to bring
The lost ones back, yearns with desire intense,
And struggles hard to wring
Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.

...

Toward God in heaven spacious
With artless faith a boy looks free,
As toward his mother gracious,
And top of Christmas-tree.
But early in the storm of youth
There wounds him deep the serpent's tooth;
His childhood's faith is doubted
And flouted.

Soon stands in radiant splendor
With bridal wreath his boyhood's dream;
Her loving eyes and tender
The light of heaven's faith stream.
As by his mother's knee of yore
God's name he stammers yet once more,
The rue of tears now paying
And praying.

When now life's conflict stirring
Leads him along through doubtings wild,
Then upward points unerring
Close by his side his child.
With children he a child is still
And whatsoe'er his heart may chill,
Prayer for his son is warming,

(Gratefully Dedicated to Mrs. Pankhurst)


She bore us in her dreaming womb,
    And laughed into the face of Death;
She laughed, in her strange agony, -
    To give her little baby breath.

Then, by some holy mystery,
    She fed us from her sacred breast,
Soothed us with little birdlike words -
To rest - to rest - to rest - to rest;

Yea, softly fed us with her life -
    Her bosom like the world in May:
Can it be true that men, thus fed,
    Feed women - as I hear them say?

Long ere we grew to girl and boy,
    She sewed the little things we wore,
And smiled unto herself for joy -
    Mysterious Portress of the Door.

Shall she who bore the son of God,
    And made the rose of Sappho's song,
She who saved...

And is this Yarrow? This the stream
Of which my fancy cherished,
So faithfully, a waking dream?
An image that hath perished!
O that some Minstrel’s harp were near,
To utter notes of gladness,
And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness!

Yet why? a silvery current flows
With uncontrolled meanderings;
Nor have these eyes by greener hills
Been soothed, in all my wanderings.
And, through her depths, Saint Mary’s Lake
Is visibly delighted;
For not a feature of those hills
Is in the mirror slighted.

A blue sky bends o’er Yarrow vale,
Save where that pearly whiteness
Is round the rising sun diffused,
A tender hazy brightness;
Mild dawn of promise! that excludes
All profitless dejection;
Though not un...

Across the Stony Mountains, o'er the desert's drouth and sand,
The circles of our empire touch the western ocean's strand;
From slumberous Timpanogos, to Gila, wild and free,
Flowing down from Nuevo-Leon to California's sea;
And from the mountains of the east, to Santa Rosa's shore,
The eagles of Mexitli shall beat the air no more.
O Vale of Rio Bravo! Let thy simple children weep;
Close watch about their holy fire let maids of Pecos keep;
Let Taos send her cry across Sierra Madre's pines,
And Santa Barbara toll her bells amidst her corn and vines;
For lo! the pale land-seekers come, with eager eyes of gain,
Wide scattering, like the bison herds on broad Salada's plain.
Let Sacramento's herdsmen heed what sound the winds bring down
Of footsteps on the crisping snow, from col...

Still to be neat, still to be dressed,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th' adulteries of art:
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

        A spaniel mightily well bred,
        Ne'er taught to labour for his bread,
        But to play tricks and bear him smart,
        To please his lady's eyes and heart,
        Who never had the whip for mischief,
        But praises from the damsel - his chief.

        The wind was soft, the morning fair,
        They issued forth to take the air.
        He ranged the meadows, where a green
        Cameleon - green as grass - was seen.

        "Halloa! you chap, who change your coat,
        What do you rowing in this boat?
        Why have you left the town? I say
        You're wrong to stroll about this way:
        Preferment, which your talent crowns,
        Believe me, friend, is found in towns."

        "Friend," said the syc...

Let me not know how sins and sorrows glide
Along the sombre city of our rage,
Or why the sons of men are heavy-eyed.

Let me not know, except from printed page,
The pain of litter love, of baffled pride,
Or sickness shadowing with a long presage.

Let me not know, since happy some have died
Quickly in youth or quietly in age,
How faint, how loud the bravest hearts have cried.

Old days, old ways, old homes beside the sea;
Old gardens with old-fashioned flowers aflame,
Poppy, petunia, and many a name
Of many a flower of fragrant pedigree.
Old hills that glow with blue- and barberry,
And rocks and pines that stand on guard, the same,
Immutable, as when the Pilgrim came,
And here laid firm foundations of the Free.
The sunlight makes the dim dunes hills of snow,
And every vessel's sail a twinkling wing
Glancing the violet ocean far away:
The world is full of color and of glow;
A mighty canvas whereon God doth fling
The flawless picture of a perfect day.

The face of the world is a homely face,
And the look of the world unkind,
When harsh on your arm a hand it lays
And bids you into the grind,
That 's little to your mind, my dear,
That 's little to your mind.

But it 's work that counts in the world, you see;
Not what we dream, but do:
For the dreamer of dreams, whatever he be,
If he 'd have his dreams come true,
Must be a workman, too, my dear,
Must be a workman, too.

So much to do; so much to know;
So much that life would shirk!
But each is one of a hive below,
The world's great Hive of Irk,
Where each must do his work, my dear,
Each one must do his work.

A song, a look, a word of cheer,
Will help more than a sigh!
For this is the law of the hive, my dear,
That every ...

As a weed beneath the ocean,
As a pool beneath a tree
Answers with each breath or motion
An imperious mastery;

So my spirit swift with passion
Finds in every look a sign,
Catching in some wondrous fashion
Every mood that governs thine.

In a moment it will borrow,
Flashing in a gusty train,
Laughter and desire and sorrow
Anger and delight and pain.

In this chill morning of a wintry Spring
    I look into the gloom'd and rainy vale;
    The sullen clouds, the stormy winds assail,
    Lour on the fields, and with impetuous wing
Disturb the lake: - but Love and Memory cling
    To their known scene, in this cold influence pale;
    Yet priz'd, as when it bloom'd in Summer's gale,
    Ting'd by his setting sun. - When Sorrows fling,
Or slow Disease, thus, o'er some beauteous Form
    Their shadowy languors, Form, devoutly dear
    As thine to me, HONORA, with more warm
And anxious gaze the eyes of Love sincere
    Bend on the charms, dim in their tintless snow,
    Than when with health's vermilion hues they glow.

‘Though logic choppers rule the town,
And every man and maid and boy
Has marked a distant object down,
An aimless joy is a pure joy,’
Or so did Tom O’Roughley say
That saw the surges running by,
‘And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.

‘If little planned is little sinned
But little need the grave distress.
What’s dying but a second wind?
How but in zigzag wantonness
Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?’
Or something of that sort he said,
‘And if my dearest friend were dead
I’d dance a measure on his grave.’

King Joris was a kind-eyed king,
A dear old, gentle, smiling thing;
But ‘though by nature meek and mild,
Two things could drive him raving wild,
Dishonesty, its naughty ways; Ingratitude, its sting.

Now, in his court there was a man,
Jones, Royal Court Historian,
Whom Joris, the compassionate,
Had raised from very low estate,
Jones drove for movers, once, a van.

The king supplied all Jones could use:
Pens, ink and paper, clothing, shoes,
Food, money, facts, a desk all fixed,
Five hundred thousand words, well mixed,
And, what I’d like to have, a Muse.

Jones set to work, but, poking ’round,
A package in his desk he found
Marked “Punctuations, Use with Care,”
And, looking in, discovered there
Of marks, best grade and mixed, a poun...

ART.


One is so fair, I turn to go,
As others go, its beckoning length;
Such paths can never lead to woe,
I say in eager, early strength.
What is the goal?
Visions of heaven, wake;
But the wind's whispers round me roll:
"For you, mistake!"


LOVE.


One leads beneath high oaks, and birds
Choose there their joyous revelry;
The sunbeams glint in golden herds,
The river mirrors silently.
Under these trees
My heart would bound or break;
Tell me what goal, resonant breeze?
"For you, mistake!"


CHARITY.


What is there left? The arid way,
The chilling height, whence all the world
Looks little, and each radiant day,
Like the soul's banner, flies unfurled.
May I stand here;
In ...